


I Wish I May

by AstridContraMundum



Series: After-comers Cannot Guess The Beauty Been [8]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: But you're a straight bat old man, I say the Big Dipper, I say the glass is half-full, I say tomato, Knew it as soon as I saw you, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Partially inspired by the Season 7 photo of Morse in a denim jacket, Sweetness and Fluff, You say it's half-empty, You say the Plough, You say tomato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 23:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20590574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: Bixby and Endeavour make the ultimate beer run when they take a trip into West Germany.





	I Wish I May

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a bit of a game I set for myself--take the last words Endeavour and Bixby said to one another in RIDE and put them in a completely different context.... and it turned into this bit of domestic fluff....

Bixby can tell even before he opens his eyes by the clarity of the bird calls outside that the weather has turned crisper, that a bright chill has descended upon the world with the ripening of the fall.

He allows himself to drift, reveling in the contrast of the fresh and blue November morning and the lazy comfort of bed—it’s Saturday, no need to rush off, no need to get up early.

He can tell by the comfortable warmth stretching along his left side that Endeavour has the same idea, that he’s still asleep, burrowed under the blankets.

But then, after a while, Bix feels a gentle stirring, as if Endeavour is waking, sitting up. And then, he has the unmistakable feeling that someone is watching him.

Bixby opens his eyes to find Endeavour propped up on his forearms, looming over him, his eyes expectant and forget-me-not blue. As blue as the morning itself.

"I just wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday," he says.

Bixby blinks, confused for a moment, certain he must have misunderstood.

"There's little danger of it being otherwise, is there?" he asks.

First off, who does he expect is going to burst into their bedroom and beat him to the punch?

And secondly and more importantly...

“My birthday isn’t until May."

Endeavour says nothing, but only reaches under his pillow, pulling out a thick manila envelope.

"What's this?"

"Just take a look," Endeavour says.

Bixby opens the envelope as Endeavour watches him, as if carefully gauging his reaction.

Then, Bix slides out a sheaf of papers—it’s a packet from a travel agency in Paris —a folder filled with tickets and hotel reservation confirmations and maps.

"I planned a trip. For your birthday. You always said you wanted to travel more in West Germany. So . . . "

"Well, I have to say, that sounds wonderful, old man. But why are we going for my birthday in November?" Bix laughs.

"The rates are exceptionally low now. It's after Oktoberfest and before all the Christmas markets. Do you know how expensive everything is, in the spring?”

Bixby looks at him, bemusedly.

No, he doesn’t know. Nor does he much care.

He hadn’t built an empire so he could quibble over pennies, or go on vacation in the off-season.

Endeavour doesn't understand how such talk brings up bad memories, a taste as bitter as collards cooked with the same dried-out ham hock for the last week of every month, as disheartening as lining your shoes with cardboard.

As much as he was loath to admit it, Fancy was right.

Endeavour really could be a bit of a cheapskate.

But Bixby pushes such thoughts away. He has known Endeavour long enough, now, to understand something about him.

Bixby's parents had nothing, but they led him to believe he deserved everything.

Endeavour's father and stepmother had enough, really, but they begrudged him every scrap they gave him.

It goes against long years of training, Bix knows, for Endeavour to spend money on something as frivolous as this.

Bix could almost see him now, dithering around outside the travel agency. He wanted to go in, but it all seemed so extravagant.

But then he told himself that it was for a birthday gift. That it was a gift for him, for Joss. And thus, he justified it to himself.

And then he went in and shot the works.

Bixby laughs softly at the thought of him, tossing his wad of francs onto the travel agent’s desk.

Well. Too right.

"Thanks, old man," Bixby says.

Endeavour smiles, and it’s a smile so daffy, shown so rarely and only to a select few, that it is its own reward.

And besides, a trip like this might cost Endeavour more even than those bills that Bix knows he keeps hidden under the mattress.

If he had his way, they'd spend every holiday at home.

Except for one trip to his publisher’s, he hadn’t ventured far from the house since their last disastrous visit to Oxford.

"Are you sure you want to go? You don’t mind?”

Endeavour brushes a hand through his hair and smiles shyly again in answer.

Bixby pulls back to consider him: his hair is a bit shorter, like he’s given himself a trim—it looks more like a leafy cap than an underwater plant.

“It looks good,” he says.

And it does suit him—the shorter hair brings out the clean lines of his face, the square stubbornness of his chin.

"I have new sunglasses and a new jacket for traveling," Endeavour says. "A whole different look. I don't think anyone will notice me much."

"Ah," Bixby says. “So. When are we going?"

"We can leave this morning."

"Really?"

"Yes," Endeavour says. "All we have to do is pack. Shouldn't take too long. Well, shouldn’t take _me_ long, anyway.”

And then he grins and jumps up, before Bixby can thump him with his pillow.

*******

In an hour, Endeavour is downstairs, waiting by the door, looking ready for an adventure. His hair is more gold-red than tawny with the long summer, and he’s wearing a trim denim jacket with silver snaps.

Fitted out with a black backpack strapped to his back, his satchel across his shoulder, and a straw picnic hamper, he looks a bit like a trail guide at a mountain resort.

Bixby, still packing, calls down to him from the top of the stairs. "Do I need an evening suit? Are we going to any Wagner productions or anything like that?”

A flicker of distaste passes over Endeavour’s features. “Of course not. This is your birthday. Not mine."

"Which car should we take?” he asks.

"Whichever one you like,” Endeavour replies. He flashes open his wallet, displaying his license. “I’ll drive, so you can just sit and sightsee."

Bixby swallows.

But it’s all right.

Certainly, the French Republic wouldn't have reinstated his license if he wasn’t an able driver. If a nation of poets and artists can trust Endeavour, then he supposes he can, as well.

What, after all, can possibly go amiss?

*******

They put the top down, despite the chill, and head east. The road lays before them like a silver thread rolling through the green, like a promise.

A promise that, on a day like this, anything is possible.

******** 

As soon as they cross the border, things become exceptionally tidy.

The geraniums—glowing such a deep red that one might believe it a color that could be visible only to honeybees—all seem to arrange themselves more symmetrically in their flower boxes, and the pleasant and peaceful streets, lined with hedgerows and half-timbered houses, are each posted with at least one old woman, sweeping.

Watching them at their work, it's easy to believe they might be a band of sisters, of ancient pagan goddess, their straw bristle brooms stirring the leaves and dust with a swish like the sound of the wind, bringing in the turning of the year.

They enter a round-about, fronted with a yellow sign that’s imprinted with black lines and incomprehensible German village names, all laid out like a pie chart. Endeavour looks at it, scowling slightly.

“Which way, old man?” Bixby asks.

“Uh, the second exit, I think,” Endeavour replies.

As they turn, Bix chances a look over at him to see if he’s having second thoughts. But no, he’s smiling softly to himself, his wavy hair billowing and blossoming with the wind.

He seems to know where he’s going.

That’s fine, then.

Bix stretches his legs, rests his arm on the top of the door, closes his eyes to the feel of the wind.

Bixby knows that people see him primarily as the purveyor of parties, as a twentieth-century Bacchus, always up for for the next good time.

What's less known is that every aspect of that persona, of Joss Bixby, had been carefully orchestrated, every detail plotted and planned and controlled, in order to prevent any slip in his mask, any blunder in his game.

It's exhilarating, really, letting all that go, letting it all fly out behind him.

It’s ingenious of Endeavour, really.

What to get the man who has everything?

The one thing he can’t buy for himself.

A complete and utter surprise.

Long ago, there was a time when Bix thought that loving someone meant holding on.

But later—much later—he learned it was much more a case of letting certain things go.

And, after all, what was the harm of it?

Let Endeavour decipher the puzzle of the road signs and take him wherever he will.

Let November, just once, wish it were May.

***********

The point of a cruise along the Rhine River, according to Endeavour, is to be assured a safe and scenic ride while drinking copious amounts of good German beer.

Bixby can’t say he disagrees, really.

They sit out on the deck in two chairs, side by side, their legs stretched out, their feet resting, perched up, on the white railing. On a table between them sit two tankards of beer, brought up from the bar below deck.

The steep and sunlit green hills that tumble down to the blue-gray water float by, as the engine churns them up the current, carrying them on.

After they’ve gone around a particularly deep bend in the river, Endeavour reaches down into the picnic hamper and takes out a metal canister.

Then, he pops it open.

"Et Voila!" he proclaims.

“What’s this?” Bixby asks.

“It’s your birthday cake.”

Ah. So they were taking this fiction this far, were they?

And why not? It certainly isn't as if he hasn’t spun a tall tale or two, once upon a time.

“Don’t you like it?” Endeavour asks.

“I do. I just didn’t realize it had to be so pink,” Bixby laughs.

"Oh," Endeavour says, less certain. “Well. It’s Tottenham cake. It’s the only cake I know how to make, really. The icing is colored pink from mulberries. I think it might be a bit of a Quaker tradition. My . . . my mother used to make it. I used to watch her.”

Bixby's face turns somber at once.

Ah. He was serious, about all of this, then.

Up until that moment, Bixby had thought it was a bit of a joke, a bit of a lark.

And suddenly, Bixby is not the man who has everything he ever wanted.

If he had everything he wanted, he’d be able to reach across the table dividing them, and kiss that anxious look away, even here, even amidst a deck rambling with tourists leaning over the rails for a look at the Loreley.

Instead, he has to put the kiss into his eyes, to show Endeavour all of what he feels without anyone else seeing it.

“No, no. It looks incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever had a cake quite like this ...” he says.

All of which is true and true enough.

He must say it with the right amount of love in his voice, because Endeavour is already reaching for the forks and the white plastic plates from the picnic hamper.

Bixby cuts a slice, works it onto his plate, and takes a bite. The cake is heavy but good, with just the right veneer of rose-pink icing smoothed over the top.

“Although, I don't suppose it goes all that well with beer,” Endeavour says, a note of uncertainty striking up again in his low and mournful voice.

“It goes perfectly,” Bixby says.

And it does, beer and cake. It's a little bitter and a little sweet. Like all of the best things in life. And it's perfect.

Because there’s no high, no sweetness quite like it—sitting beside someone who sees right through your careful mask but who loves you still, someone who knows you through and through, someone who wakes you up in the morning and looks at you with forget-me-not eyes and says, "let’s dash it all and go have an adventure"— while all the while the world sails smoothly by.

It's one of those sweet moments of pure and unexpected joy; with lungs full of cold air and a heart full of what he had never thought to find, rearing wings bold and bolder, he feels as if he has become, after all, The Great Bixby, larger than life, large enough to envelop the wide, sharp, blue sky, the soft mammoth green hills that ripple down into the river—as if all the world rests somewhere snug and tight, right under his ribs.

He wishes this moment could last forever, that he could sit right here, watching the procession of castles and ruins and green hills and crying water birds and relentless red geraniums move before him, with Endeavour right beside him, the wind moving through his tawny red-gold hair so that the short curls undulate and fly just like the sweep of the river that carries them off and on.

But, just like all such perfect moments, it carries within it its own tinge of melancholy—marked by nothing so much as its sheer and utter and aching transience.

As much as he would like to hold on to the moment, engrave it on his memory, it's slipping away already—already they are moving on, past another impossible hill, another improbable and fanciful castle, built by some robber baron, long since dead, centuries ago.

Even if he went and bribed the captain to stop the boat, time would move on. As much as Bixby would like to freeze it into place.

Right here.

Endeavour turns to him, then, and raises his glass as if in a toast.

"Eat, drink and be merry," he says, and Bixby smiles.

Endeavour had said the same thing to him years ago, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, amidst white balloons and party lights that glowed and glittered like distant galaxies, as if the whole house on Lake Silence was filled with starlight.

To show him that he remembers, he lifts his glass and gives Endeavour the same answer that he gave to him on that long ago night.

"As the fella said, you only get one go around the board."

And then they both take a drink. Bixby watches as Endeavour closes his eyes, tilts his head back, and it’s worth the trip, just watching Endeavour unwind a bit, soften his shoulders and stretch himself out from his usual slouch, enjoying himself for once.

Endeavour doesn't always know how to appreciate the finer things in life.

Music and beer are the two primary exceptions.

“So, which one shall we buy?” Bixby asks, as they pass another fortress.

He says this knowing it’s not all that original a line, that countless couples on the boat are playing this same game, right now.

The difference is, he might be able to swing it if he really wanted to.

He waits for Endeavour to say something practical. They’re too drafty. Too garish.

Do you know how much the upkeep would cost?

But the wind has a bit of a bite, it's exhilarating, it’s a day on which it's good to be alive. And Bixby can tell that Endeavour is letting it all go, too, that he’s willing to play along.

They've come a long way from those early days when they first came to the continent. After the adrenaline had worn off from their flight from Lake Silence, after Endeavour stopped and realized what he had done, taking such an uncharacteristic plunge, Bixby expected day by day for him to disappear, make his way back to Britain.

In many ways, they were strangers to one another. But now he’d say that there's no one who knows Endeavour the way he does.

And Endeavour certainly knows him better than anyone. All the way down to his real name. 

Endeavour looks out over the landscape dotted with towers, bunches his face up into his typical, thoughtful scowl, twisting his mouth, as if he's considering which one to choose.

“How about that one, there, with the turret and the red roof?” he says.

And Bixby laughs, rich and low, and his heart soars.

It’s the gaudiest and most ostentatious of the lot.

After the long journey in becoming Joss Bixby, he’s found his real audience, one who knows it’s all a bit of theater, but, nevertheless, appreciates the show.

******

By the time the boat returns to St. Goar, the sky has drifted to a soft green-blue, fading, in the west, to violet. One star appears at the horizon, shining like a single spotlight, out of the lazy dusk.

Bixby closes his eyes and concentrates.

"What are you doing?" Endeavour asks.

"What's that, old man?"

"You had an odd look on your face." Endeavour says. "Like you were thinking."

Bixby huffs a laugh. A few years ago would have answered with a rejoinder such as, "It’s been known to happen, now and then."

But now, he realizes that Endeavour didn't mean it the way it sounded.

He’s just an awkward sod, really.

"I’m wishing on a star, of course. Old habit from childhood."

“But it’s a planet.”

"What’s that?”

"It's a planet. It's Venus. And, at any rate, it’s not moving. You can't wish on a stationary star,” Endeavour says with a knowing laugh. “Only a shooting one.”

“Of course, you can. Don't you know the rhyme? ‘_Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might_?’”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Then you would have a wish every single night,” Endeavour protests.

Endeavour doesn’t believe in too much of a good thing.

_"Another party? You can have too much of a good thing, you know."_

But Bixby certainly does.

"That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” Bix asks.

Endeavour huffs a laugh, shakes his head.

"I've been wishing on stars since I was six,” Bixby says. “I suppose you think that's all foolish superstition. But I do it all the same. There. Now you know all of my secrets. That must be the end of them, at last.”

Bix looks up at the striking bright point on the lavender and violet horizon.

“You should go ahead,” he suggests. “Give it a try.”

Endeavour gives him a rather severe look, as if he suspects that he’s putting one over on him.

Then he seems to change his mind.

“I will,” he says at last. “If you will, too. We can at the same time. So I won’t look like an idiot alone.”

He puts out his hand, and they shake on it, as if they have a deal.

“That’s fine then, old man.”

“All right,” Endeavour says. “I suppose I ought to think about this.”

Of course he does.

He closes his eyes, then, as if he’s taking his time, mulling it over, what to wish for, as if this might be his one shot. He looks as if he’s ready to leap off of the deck, into the cold Teutonic river, as if he’s about to do something terrifying.

And he is. For Endeavor, Bix realizes, closing his eyes like this, dropping his wariness in a public place, is, in itself, a leap of faith.

Endeavour opens his eyes, then—eyes bright blue enough even to hold their color in the falling darkness—and shrugs.

”Anything’s possible,” he says.

Endeavour looks at him somberly—it's if they are about to climb Mt. Everest, as if they are about to sail the Pacific in a small, two-man vessel. It’s as if wishing on a star were an endeavour.

"Good luck," Endeavour says, with a hint of an earnest nod.

Bixby looks at him fondly and smiles in the darkness.

"You too, old man,” he says. “You too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Chatelaine for reminding me where I heard of Tottenham cake--and for telling me its proper name! 
> 
> Funnily enough, the whole "Star Light, Star Bright" rhyme does originate in the States, so I thought it suited this AUs Bixby. 
> 
> This could be added onto at some later date and turned into a sort of comedy of errors/rom-com Endeavour meets Mr. Bean's Holiday sort of thing. I just don't know. Maybe I've just AUed my AU. :D
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
